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Entry list for 2013 World Endurance Championship announced

January 31, 2013

The World Endurance Championship will have a full slate of entrants in 2013. It looks to be a very competitive year for the series. Photo by TOYOTA

This year's FIA World Endurance Championship will be contested throughout by 32 cars, the FIA and the ACO have revealed in Paris -- and Toyota's factory team will be a constant presence with two of its TS030 racecars, after all.

The very promising WEC entry list comprises only six LM-P1 but 12

LM-P2 sports-prototypes, along with six LM-GTE Pro and eight LM-GTE Am entries. Other cars will be entered in WEC events on a race-by-race basis.

Toyota Motorsport announced last month that budget restraints would reduce its 2013 WEC team to only one of the gasoline-electric hybrids, except at Spa-Francorchamps and Le Mans. However, the team has now reversed that decision, and has retained Alex Wurz, Nicolas Lapierre and Kazuki Nakajima to race one car, and Anthony Davidson, Stephane Sarrazin and Sebastien Buemi the other.

Audi had already confirmed that three diesel-electric hybrid R18 e-tron quattro LM-P1 sports prototypes would be entered for the Spa 6 Hours and the Le Mans 24 Hours, and two in each of the six other WEC rounds. Oliver Jarvis, who won the GT class at the Daytona 24 Hours a week ago with an Audi R8 Grand-Am, has been included in the manufacturer's 2013 WEC program alongside eight drivers who raced for the German factory team last year. Jarvis will race the third car at Spa and Le Mans with Lucas di Grassi and Marc Gené.

The drivers of the two regular Audis will be Marcel Fässler, André Lotterer and Benoît Tréluyer, who won last year's Le Mans and the WEC Drivers title, and by Tom Kristensen, Allan McNish and .

The only privateer LM-P1 entries in the 2013 WEC come from Rebellion Racing with a Lola-Toyota, and Strakka Racing with an HPD. The LM-P2 class will feature HPD, Lola, Lotus, Morgan, Nissan and Zytek chassis.

The GTE classes will comprise five Ferrari 458s, four Porsche 911 RSRs, four Aston Martin Vantage V8s and a Corvette C6-ZR1 from Larbre Competition.

Porsche, which will return to high-end sports-car racing this year with a factory team for the first time since 1998, has confirmed that its regular WEC drivers will be Marc Lieb and Richard Lietz in one car, and Jörg Bergmeister and Patrick Pile in the other. Porsche is to race two new 911 RSR racecars, based on the 'Type 991' model generation, in association with Team Manthey. At Silverstone, Spa and Le Mans, the team will run a third driver in each car, and has named Romain Dumas and Timo Bernhard.

ACO president Pierre Fillon said of this year's entry list: “We are extremely pleased to announce a grid of 32 full-season entries for the 2013 season. 2012 was a great first year for the championship and we hoped to secure between 28 and 30 cars for 2013. To receive 32 full-season entries underlines the importance of the WEC and a great indication that we have created a world championship that teams and manufacturers want to take part in.

“With two entries for each manufacturer, we also have the prospect of a straight fight between Audi and Toyota in LM-P1 and after the battles last year, the stage is now set for even more drama in 2013.

The LM-P2 grid alone represents eight different countries and the category is a great showcase for the WEC. In LM-GTE Pro, we have another great battle in prospect between Porsche, Ferrari and Aston Martin, three great names associated with Le Mans and endurance racing.”

WEC promoter Gérard Neveu added: “The WEC will once again visit eight countries on four continents and the eight-round calendar has been devised to reduce the logistical costs associated with an FIA World Championship. The races follow a logical progression around the globe and the events are spread out enough to allow the cars and equipment to be transported by ship or road instead of air where possible. This also has the added advantage of reducing the carbon footprint of the WEC significantly.”